


Frivolous Inconveniences

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Hurt/Comfort, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Monsters, Multi, Sensory Overload, Trial Of The Grasses (The Witcher), Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: 5 times Geralt got his hair styled by people he cares about, and 1 time they caught him trying (unsuccessfully) to braid his own hair.
Relationships: Borch Three Jackdaws | Villentretenmert/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 28
Kudos: 346





	Frivolous Inconveniences

**Author's Note:**

> A kinkmeme prompt fill: https://witcherkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/429.html?thread=202669#cmt202669
> 
> Be aware, this is styled much more along the lines of the books/games

0.

It could be said that for the majority of his life, Geralt gave little thought to his hair. Even less so before the age of ten, although that was arguably such a short portion of his life it sometimes felt that it should hardly be allowed to count for anything. When at their youngest, the boys of Kaer Morhen simply ran and played and worked among the buildings of the keep, and hair mattered no more than the scrappy clothes they wore or their dirty nails. 

Even as they grew older — five, six, seven — and began real training it didn’t matter as much more than a potential handhold for an opponent. And that was certainly common enough. Though they were hardly trained to grab at hair, and may even be scolded for such an underhanded tactic depending on the lesson and the instructor, the children were ruthless in their games. 

During one such game, one called Noonwraith by the children, Geralt was made sharply aware of his dark, flyaway hair for exactly that reason. He was sprinting barefoot across the keep’s proper, ducking in and out of shadows, when the “noonwraith”, a boy called Forrel, sprang from beneath a wagon. Geralt flung himself away from the boy’s grasping hands, and Forrel, unable to to get a hand on Geralt’s body as he was outmaneuvered, did manage to grab a fistful of hair so hard it dragged Geralt to the ground. Geralt howled like a bobcat at his friend, who shrieked in victory and bolted away to join the others, proclaiming Geralt the noonwraith for all to hear. In moments like that, head smarting so badly Geralt had to clench his teeth to keep back the pain, he was perfectly aware of his hair and not particularly fond of it. Changing the clench into a snarl, he charged after Forrel who leapt like scalding water had been thrown at him, tumbling frantically into a shadow and shouting loudly “Safe, safe, I’m in night, you can’t get me!”

It was in this way, and others, that Geralt came to understand that hair was one of those inconveniences which must be dealt with. For a witcher, there were many things like this, and for Geralt hair felt like the most irrational and unforgivable of the lot. Hunger reminded you to eat so you had the energy to train, sleep healed the body, bathing relaxed the muscles and maintained good health; even monotonous tasks, like gathering herbs, oiling swords, and scouring with sand had purposeful results. Hair, though, was a nuisance. It tangled and knotted, needed to be brushed and cleaned and tended like a garden that produced nothing but weeds. He couldn’t see the good of it, and could only curse it when it was grabbed or caught or pulled. But like all inconveniences suffered by a witcher, it sometimes had to be acknowledged, which led to another insufferable inconvenience: haircuts. This was one more thing Geralt spent his earliest years thinking little about, but at the age of seven decided to rebel against.

They were on the Hedgehog when the decision was made. The Hedgehog was a precursor to the much larger and more challenging Comb that they would be put on once their legs were long enough to make the jumps and bones hardy enough to take the falls. It was also a popular piece of equipment with the young boys. In a roughly circular shape, a number of thick, wooden poles protruded from the ground at varying heights, though never more than four feet, with their tips wrapped many times over in leather to soften the blow when they were inevitably fallen upon. When left unsupervised, the children would often overrun the equipment to use in games of tag or wrestling, but at the moment they were being supervised closely by old Barmin, who barked out instructions as they leapt from post to post.

“Don’t just try to dance around on your toes,” he shouted at the two boys currently facing off. “You need a solid stance, how many times must you be told?”

Geralt, never taking his eyes off his opponent, self-consciously adjusted his footing. He was gratified to see that Gweld did as well. There was no point complaining about how hard it may or may not be to get a solid stance on the small, circular surfaces of the poles while moving — all you would get is a lecture about how witchers fight in all terrains, and if they wanted flat ground then they were better off becoming ploughmen.

Gweld sprang to the side, making a series of jumps that got him to one of the tallest poles, and Geralt quickly retreated — no point getting pounced on by someone with the high ground. This carried on for some time, watched by the rest of their year group as Barmin had them analyse the form and strategy (or lack thereof) of the two boys on the Hedgehog, until finally Geralt struck. They had been dancing around each other, getting closer and closer, but neither had succeeded in so much as landing a hit. Today was a struggle; often they were given staves to extend their reach, but today Barmin wanted to see them figure out how to get within arm’s reach of each other. Already today plenty of pairs had fallen together in a tangle rather than successfully knocking one or the other off. Geralt was determined not to be one of them. He feigned at a grapple, watching his opponent flinch back to avoid his arms, and when Geralt was sure he was off balance he struck out instead with his leg, jamming hard at the boy’s ankle. Gweld gave a shocked little cry, but in his fall managed to twist like a fish and grabbed Geralt’s outflung calf, giving such a jerk that Geralt felt the ground disappear out from under his other foot for a horrible second.

Though in fairness, the next second was even worse, because his back slam against the pole he’d been standing on, and then he was crashing down to the hard dirt between the poles.

“A success. A sloppy success,” Barmin said dryly, “but very well, a success.”

Geralt, wheezing, trying to get his breath back, blew an irritated huff up at his comrade. Gweld was awkwardly draped over two different poles, clinging to them like a drunken squirrel, but he had managed to save himself. As carefully as he could, Gweld disentangled himself and dropped down next to Geralt, helping to pull him to his feet as Geralt coughed and tried to shake the dust off. It didn’t help that his head had also made contact against the pole as he’d fallen from, leaving him feeling dazed, and his scalp scraped raw with hair snagging in the course woodgrain and tearing mercilessly out as he stood.

Geralt fought hard not to be in a bad mood over it. There were always successes and failures in training, and a failure, he reminded himself, often simply meant you learnt more in the moment. It was hard though.

Barmin gave him a cursory go over, checking Geralt's head (which stung like devils were dancing on it when he did) and giving his ribs a firm pat. “You’re fine,” he decided, “up you go for another round. And scrap the fancy kicking, it’s not for when you barely have your own footing, boy.”

Geralt groaned internally as he scrambled up the posts. His back ached, his head throbbed, and he did not remotely want to be put back on display after such a sad showing. But you caught the fear if you didn’t, or so the older witchers told them, so up Geralt went.

He was saved though by the arrival of a younger boy, probably four, playing messenger since he wasn’t old enough to be up on the equipment yet. “Master Vesemir is ready now,” chirped the child. Barmin scowled and shook his head, but he waved at the boys and told them to go. Immediately Geralt slid off the poles and tried to hide himself among the group just in case Barmin got it into his head that Geralt should stay anyway. 

“Where are we going now?” Eskel asked once Geralt had caught up with him. “Did anyone tell you?”

Geralt considered his friend, and then remembered that Eskel  _ had _ only come to Kaer Morhen last year. Even though new boys always were brought in at varying ages, it was sometimes a surprise to remember that Eskel hadn’t been here as long as Geralt. They had become inseparable in the year since, to the exasperation of their elders who had to tolerate the two.

“Haircut,” Gweld said with a sigh, trotting up to join them. Geralt nodded affirmation. Vesemir always gave the haircuts, and it happened about once a year when the old witcher suddenly noticed that the boys were looking more like shaggy mountain sheep than children. And it was always a nuisance. It interrupted training, meant you had to sit inside, still, on a bench while you waited your turn — and this on its own was a sin as far as most of the boys were concerned. Enough time was spent sitting still during their daily studies; requiring  _ more _ in addition to that without even the potential chance of studying monsters was a trial in and of itself. Then when it was your turn, you got hacked away at until enough hair had been shorn that Vesemir was satisfied that it wouldn’t be a problem again until next year. That meant, if they were unlucky enough that Vesemir thought of it late in the season, that they would spend the next few weeks with freezing ears and scalps everytime it got cold and breezy until enough had grown back to offer some protection.

Sure enough, as soon as they marched into the keep’s main hall, they were sat along the long dining benches that had been shoved against the walls to make a queue. Eskel watched as boy after boy trudged forward, sat on the low stool at Vesemir’s feet, and had his hair roughly cut by Vesemir and his knife. Geralt mostly considered this a nuisance and had never much thought about what it was like to someone else — it was simply the way it was — but this would be Eskel’s first haircut at the keep and he seemed quietly horrified. Gradually the line progressed, and Geralt watched as Eskel was called up, sat down, and was liberated from his lanky dark hair. Gloomily he trudged back as Gweld stood to take his place at the stool.

“I look like the Hedgehog,” Eskel moaned.

He did, Geralt realized, with a sharp tick of amusement. It was fairly standard as far as Vesemir’s haircuts went, but it was only now that Geralt really realized how appalling they were. No grown witcher had a head of hair that looked like uneven, patchy mountain shrubs.

“Geralt,” Vesemir called, impatiently.

Geralt jumped, only just then realizing that Gweld was done, his red hair matching Eskel’s, and that it was now his turn.

The irritation of the day bubbled up anew in Geralt’s chest, and his head still stung, and suddenly the thought of his hair being tugged and yanked and sawed at so that he looked as sad and patchy as his friends was completely untenable.

“I’ve decided to let mine grow out,” Geralt said. He had intended for it to be very decisive, though it came out rather squeaky, more of a question than a request.

Vesemir raised a brow at him, but ultimately shook his head and told him he could live with that choice if he so wanted, and just like that Geralt was allowed to escape with a full head of hair and two friends squawking indignantly at him for avoiding the fate to which they had been subjected.

1.

It didn’t take long though for Geralt to experience the repercussions of that choice. Long hair, it turned out, was even more of a nuisance than short, something he should have already been aware of but had conveniently forgotten in his fit of rebellion. For one, it got everywhere. This wasn’t something he had appreciated at first, but over the months as his hair grew longer, and gained enough weight to hang straight, he realized what it was to be blinded in a fight when the wind against you.

He was still trying to spit hair from his mouth, after he’d been laid low by Eskel and his practice sword. Eskel was cackling at him — Geralt nearly always beat Eskel with the sword, and Eskel was not above crowing over his friend. Geralt was already getting back to his feet and grabbing for his sword, ready to thump some respect back into his friend, when the wind shifted again and blew his hair back into his face before he could even get started. Eskel had the decency to stand and wait while Geralt furiously tried to tuck his hair unsuccessfully back behind his ears.

“Geralt!”

Eskel grimaced, and Geralt felt his shoulders slump. Vesemir, besides for the resident barber when need demanded, was their fencing instructor, and  _ had _ been on the other side of the yard berating Tash and his opponent. Not any more it would seem.

“Come here,” Vesemir ordered, and Geralt trotted miserably up to him knowing exactly what he was about to hear.

“Do you think a werewolf is going to politely sit on its haunches and wait for you to fix your hair,” Vesemir scolded.

“No, sir,” Geralt said.

“If that had happened outside the keep, what would you be?”  
“Dead, sir,” Geralt said.

“And, Geralt, I much prefer you not dead, for all you make me question that sentiment from time to time,” said Vesemir sternly, folding his arms.

Geralt, not knowing what to say to that, simply nodded.

Vesemir sighed. “I should shear that head of yours here and now,” he said, and Geralt felt his stomach drop. The humiliation would be horrible, walking back among his peers with his hair cropped and full inches shorter than everyone else's, a mark of his arrogance and poor choices and his teacher’s displeasure. He didn’t dare say anything, but fought to control the tremble in his hands.

“Turn around,” Vesemir commanded, and Geralt did so, fists clenched in front of him.

He felt Vesemir tug at his hair, waited for the pressure then release of a knife being pulled through it, but it didn’t come. Instead, Vesemir dragged his fingers roughly down Geralt’s scalp, pulling the hair back from his face and into a tail at the back of his head. Then something was wrapped around it.

“There,” Vesemir said, releasing the hair and letting Geralt feel the simple queue it had been pulled into. “Keep the band, make sure you learn how to tie it tightly and securely. If you think you’re mature enough to keep your hair long, you must show it by learning to care for it. Now go get your sword, you’re letting Eskel rest on his laurels.”

“Yes, sir,” Geralt said, bounding back to the training field, resolving to spend the entire evening tying and retying the leather band until he could prove to Vesemir that he was old enough to handle the responsibility.

No one else was obliged to touch Geralt’s hair again for a long time. He didn’t join the boys for the annual cut, and he never again left it loose during training. It still got tangled and grabbed from time to time, but he was growing more used to it, and once again it simply became an easily overlooked, mildly inconvenient part of his life that neither he nor others bothered to remark upon.

And then Geralt and his yearmates turned ten.

Geralt sat curled in the corner of his cot, a book opened in his lap, and his spine hunched like a question mark as he tried to regulate the pain racing up and down its fried nerves. He wasn’t really focussed, too much attention devoted to his burning lungs and raw throat, but it was a book he had read before and didn’t require too much focus. That was why he had asked to be brought this one. It was a treatise of different types of armour from along the coast and how they were forged and for what purpose. It was challenging enough — and interesting enough — that it at least somewhat captured his shattered attention, but familiar enough that Geralt didn’t grow frustrated when he lost his place through dozing or convulsing. This was all the energy he could muster. The Trial of the Grasses was not long past, and he still felt sticky and sick deep in his stomach. His nerves seemed to fizz under his skin, and the delicate linings of his nose, his throat, his ears still felt raw. He could still taste the bile and blood that he had nearly drowned on, his ears still rang with screams that may have been his own or may have been his friends’. His mind still flinched when he thought of his friends.

There were so few of them left.

Geralt was one of the few.

He was elated, ecstatic, proud to be one of the few.

He was nauseous, horrified, devastated to be one of the few.

It wasn’t something he could dwell on. He shoved those feelings down, buried them instead beneath the ache of his muscles and throb of his teeth and labour of his heart and lungs. A witcher didn’t feel, didn’t have emotions, and Geralt truly understood why now. He tried to focus on the book, on the armour, on the tiny chalk marks he and Eskel had left on the pages of armour they would like to own one day. The Trial of the Dreams was when their hormones would be fixed, when emotions would be dampened and flushed from him, and Geralt felt bitterly that they had decided a poor order for these things.

He shook his head.

Don’t think, don’t feel, just read.

There was no knowing how many were still alive. No one would tell him, not yet, not when the Trial was still so fresh; after all, some went quick, didn’t even last a night in the mage’s laboratories. There had been times during the Trial when Geralt had wished he was one of those. But some went slow, body gradually weakening and breaking beneath the strain of mutation. The children had all been separated for the Trial, and now, to recover, they were tucked away in their own tiny cells — bare little rooms in the lower levels of the keep. Nominally it was to keep them away from too much stimuli as their body’s readjusted, but Geralt could still hear the echoing screams over other boys from cells near him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was to keep the grown witchers from the children who were dying in agony. There were no doors on the cells, and if Geralt weren’t feeling so weak and shaky he would have gone to stick his head out by now, anything to try and guess how many of them were left. As it was no one would tell him anything and he was left to try to ignore his body, ignore the cries of his yearmates, and ignore when the Trial supervisors passed down the corridor beyond the cell, every so often carrying off a small, linen wrapped bundle that would never move again, more often than not soaked in blood and fluids.

Geralt tucked a strand of dark, greasy, sweat-soaked hair behind his ear so he could better focus on the words and less on his surroundings.

_ The School of the Griffin was said to craft armour that helped channel the energy of Signs. Eskel had wanted that type, was itching to learn magic once they were through their Trials, though Geralt felt that wearing another School’s armour was a type of betrayal. _

He couldn’t dwell on the nagging voice that asked if Eskel was even still alive. If he would ever get a chance to attempt magic.

_ Focus _ . _ Read. _

“Geralt.”

Geralt looked up. Vesemir stood near the foot of his cot, a shallow basin under his arm. A sort of dread settled into Geralt’s veins. Vesemir shouldn’t be here. He was the fencing master, he had nothing to do with the Trials. And adult witchers didn’t visit those recovering from the Trials — you didn’t want to get attached to someone who was as likely to die as not. No,  _ more  _ likely to die than not. Geralt knew this row of cells down in the catacombs, and there were enough for fewer than half the boys who’d entered the Trial. Geralt felt immediately and instinctively that if he was here, something very wrong was happening.

“Come here, lad,” Vesemir said, with a gentleness that made Geralt even more anxious, but he carefully moved next to Vesemir when the man sat down on the side of the cot. Vesemir stared at him for a long moment, bringing a large hand up to touch his face, then bringing it down to his shoulder, and then his arm, gripping Geralt like he did when trying to judge if Geralt was strong enough to handle a heavier sword, or if the armour they were putting on him was the right size. It was calculating. But there was something weary hidden behind that look, in the lines on the old witcher’s face.

“Master?” Geralt prompted, feeling his heart flutter nervously.

“You really have healed well,” said Vesemir. When Geralt grimaced, Vesemir managed to crack a grin. “No, I imagine it doesn’t feel like it, but the fact that you’re already up and getting bored is a good sign. You are resilient, always have been.” Then he sighed, the weariness back. “You’re going back for some additional trials, lad.”

“Dreams?” asked Geralt, surprised. The Trial of Dreams usually didn’t happen until at least a year after the Trial of Grasses, and the Trial of the Mountain didn’t happen until trainees were ready to graduate to full-fledged witchers.

“No, no. They… have some additional tests they want to try. On you, and some of the other strong lads. You have a good year group, a number of tough young things. They think you’ll be able to handle it.”

“Oh,” said Geralt. There was nothing else to say. At Kaer Morhen, you were told what to expect, and then you prepared for it. This was not permission being asked. Geralt tried to work up a feeling of pride and found abruptly that there was nothing but a vague, hollow ache. It seems his emotions had decided then to disappear after all.

“It won’t be easy, but you’re strong,” Vesemir said, still in a gentler tone than Geralt thought he had ever heard from the man. “Turn around.”

Geralt did so. Vesemir rearranged himself, and pulled Geralt closer to him, and then slowly began to pull what felt like a comb through Geralt’s dark hair. Geralt relaxed into it. He was too tired to do anything else, and in any case it had been many years since he’d sat in somebody’s lap, not since he was in the younglings’ dorm, too small to train, still learning life within the keep.

Vesemir brushed the mats out of Geralt’s hair with more tenderness than he had ever shown to Geralt’s hair before; haircuts were perfunctory and quick, this was not. After the mats were gone, Vesemir picked up his basin again, and instructed Geralt to tip his head back until his hair was submerged in the water, to rid it of the sweat that had been sticking to it since the thrashing horror of the Grasses. Then it was brushed out again, and very carefully Geralt felt Vesemir separate it into strands and begin to weave it together. Geralt had seen other witchers with various types of braids, but he had never tried to replicate one before; now Vesemir was creating a loose one at the base of his skull.

When he was done, Vesemir gave Geralt’s head a pat that made him want to succumb to instincts long buried and crawl fully into the older man’s lap, to simply curl up, hide his face, and cry until the pain and fear and heartbreak faded away. He didn’t, but it was only through effort that he resisted.

“There, that will keep you a bit more comfortable when you’re lying down next,” said Vesemir.

Lying down. On a table, to be injected by something unknown and body-breaking. Geralt trembled but nodded. He wondered who else was going to these additional experiments, if they would also receive this gentle treatment beforehand.

“Rest,” Vesemir advised, standing back up. “Just as you would a night before examination duels. You’ll fight, and you’ll come through, as you always somehow manage.”

When Vesemir left, Geralt curled up on his cot, book forgotten, and instead played with the end of the braid until he was able to drift into a restless sleep. Eventually he would be woken by the mages to be taken away again with a half dozen other boys, but for the moment the warm weight of a kind hand on his head almost seemed to melt the pain and the fear away.

When he next woke up from the Trials, drenched in fever and body still so tight from the seizures that it felt as if his muscles would tear, he was the only one of those half dozen to do so. His braid was a gnarled mess, no sign of the careful work Vesemir had put into it.

It was also a stark, unnatural white, the only thing paler than Geralt’s ashen, drenched face as he shook and vomited and cried. It would be a while longer before he even learnt of the colour change.

It did make it much harder to ignore his hair after that, if for no other reason than no one else could either.

Vesemir called him a “white wolf” when Geralt finally worked up the strength to be moved from his cot back into the dormitories. Eskel had a number of less kind names, but Geralt found he couldn’t mind them because he was still simply shattered with relief to be alive, and to have his friend alive next to him. And going by the expression on Eskel’s face when Geralt staggered into the dormitories where the rest of his surviving yearmates had been moved to weeks earlier, white-haired and exhausted, he imagined Eskel felt the same.

They had both made it.

So many hadn’t, but they had. Gweld too. And once they recovered they would start to develop true witcher strength and reflexes. It was almost strange when their bodies began to fill out, that there was no lasting sign of the trauma besides the slit pupils each child now bore and that shock of white that marked Geralt as different even among his peers.

2.

And it remained the mark of an outsider. Not so much in Kaer Morhen, where everyone quickly became used to the white-haired child in their midst. Mostly it simply became, once again, a mild nuisance. A very clear marking that indicated to the grown witchers who to hunt down when he and Eskel didn’t disappear quickly enough before their mischief was discovered. (Eskel had begun to suggest he wear a bonnet after they got lashed for stealing plums from the pies cooling in the kitchen — after all, everyone by now knew that if they saw a flash of white hair escaping a crime scene Geralt, and Eskel by extension, were to blame.)

The Path was not so forgiving. Witchers were already disliked and feared, and most people saw the white-hair as just a further mark of a monster, like his twin swords or yellow cat-like eyes. Like Geralt could tell the nature of a beast by the claw-marks left in the dirt or the composition of its dung, so could the humans tell at a glance that a danger stalked among them.

Three years onto the Path, and he runs into Eskel again in an out of the way village with what sounds like a textbook cockatrice case. His face remained calm, level, when he walked into the alderman’s hut and spotted the man, as was Eskel’s. They gave each other cursory, professional nods. The alderman didn’t want to pay for two witchers — couldn’t afford to even if he had wanted to — and Geralt should have accepted that, said his good byes, and set off in a new direction. But Eskel spoke up first.

“From your description this is a fearsome monster indeed. Your village has done well to buttress itself from attack so far, but I would be much more secure of my chance of success with my brother here. Pay your fee, we will split it between us.”

The alderman looked between them, torn between being uneasy about having two unnatural predators in the same room, but also seeing a bargain when it comes knocking. In the end he agreed, and they excused themselves to the room that Eskel had been given until he completed the contract. As soon as they were behind closed doors they fell on each other, tight hugs and back slaps that left them both giddy like boys again.

“Wolf, it’s good to see you! Gods, it’s not half lonely out here without a dozen other lads around, isn’t it? Keeping well? I see you’ve got a few new decorations since I last saw you!”

Geralt grappled against Eskel, revelling in the easy, friendly touch of someone who didn’t need to be coerced or paid to do so. It was almost surprising exactly how much he’d missed this. Young witchers grew up in dorms, learnt in groups, were little better than packs of wild dogs according to Master Osbert. Learning to march alone was a strange beast to battle.

“ _ My _ new decorations?” Geralt said instead. “What happened to your pretty face?”

Eskel grimaced but laughed. A brutal set of slashes distorted the side of his face almost beyond recognition, if Geralt weren’t so familiar with his brother’s scent and stance. “Don’t ask. I’ll have a good embellishment for the story that makes me sound like a noble hero by the time we return to Kaer Morhen. Have you returned to winter there yet?”

“Not yet. You?”

“No, nor me. We should both return this year, spend a winter sharing stories to see who has truly grown into the better witcher.”

“We’ll see that now,” Geralt said, “when I kill your contract and receive only half the pay for my troubles.”

Eskel laughed, but was clearly game to take Geralt up on the challenge. The two set off to what was believed to be the creature’s hunting grounds.

The battle itself wouldn’t have been too taxing for one witcher, and two working in concert was almost comically easy. At least, it would have been so, except for the part where the cockatrice, enraged already by two people intruding on its territory, took exception to Geralt’s distraction tactics and retaliated by vomiting the half digested sheep it had in its gullet all over him. Eskel managed to lop off its wing during that, and Geralt beheaded it neatly when it tried to lurch away, but by and large Geralt was feeling much less amused than Eskel about the whole thing.

“You have a little something...” Eskel said, smirking as he gestured vaguely towards Geralt.

Unamused, Geralt scraped off some of the slop from his face and flung it at Eskel who did a quick backstep to avoid being splattered.

“There’s a river just over the hill,” said Eskel, good mood not remotely ruined. “Let’s clean off so the villagers don’t pay me a contract to get rid of you next.”

The water was a blessing, and both he and Eskel stripped as quickly as they could and splashed in with relief. Even if Eskel has not suffered from cockatrice bile, between the primary arteries in the wing and neck he was fair covered in blood. The river was deep enough that both could fully submerge, even if the water was still icy winter-runoff. It was cold enough that Eskel cleaned as quickly and cursory as he could, before trudging back to the bank to clean off his gear. Geralt stayed longer, fighting the chunks out of his hair.

“Come here, Wolf, and I’ll give you a hand,” Eskel called, and Geralt wasn’t about to argue.

Geralt submerged himself next to the bank, and Eskel held him down and roughly scrubbed at Geralt’s hair until it was once again its usual white. When he came back up for air, Eskel moved himself so he sat behind Geralt, legs hanging back in the water, and began dragging his fingers through the hair to tease out the knots.

“You don’t have to,” Geralt started, but Eskel shushed him.

“Oh please, Geralt. You know if your hair dries like this it’ll look like a haystack. Besides, I’ve missed being able to touch people without them flinching. Sit still.”

Geralt couldn’t argue with that, and did so even if the water was damnably cold. It didn’t take long though before the warming spring sun, the soft sounds of Eskel’s slow heartbeat, and his warm, sure fingers through Geralt’s hair acted like a quilt on his mind. Geralt could almost feel himself drifting off. This wasn’t a luxury Geralt would have considered before, but now he found himself wishing very much it didn’t have to end. He was so absorbed he didn’t even pay attention to what Eskel was doing until he’d drawn the hair from the crown of his head and woven it into what certainly felt like some mockery of a tiara.

“What is this,” was all he said, as he felt it out with a hand.

“A whore taught me to do that for her,” said Eskel, grinning. “You look beautiful, Geralt.”

Geralt pulled himself from the river, eyeing Eskel threateningly as he continued to try to assess what was done to his hair. “I’ll take the cockatrice head myself and tell the village that it ate you,” Geralt warned, as he and Eskel shrugged back into their gear.

Eskel just laughed and Geralt didn’t make any move to take out the braids. No one dared comment on a witcher’s hairstyle, especially when he had a bloody, decapitated monster head under one arm. Geralt kept the braids long after he and Eskel separated again, until they had become a mess of tufts and had to be removed before he started looking like the haystack Eskel had envisioned. After that, it was back to a simple queue. A practical solution to a minor inconvenience.

3.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Yennefer gave Geralt a disapproving look as he slouched into the sitting room. Take a witcher out of his armour and put him in something that had even a passing acquaintance with fashion and suddenly it was like you were leading him to the gallows. Before she would simply assume this was just a facet of Geralt grouchy nihilism, but since meeting his comrades she was beginning to think it was a side effect of the mutations.

She caught his arm when he made to pass her, and tugged him back, thrusting him onto a settee. Geralt allowed himself to be manhandled, and sat down heavily, giving Yennefer a confused expression.

“You’re not going  _ anywhere _ looking like that,” she said, gesturing to his hair. Geralt’s hand rose, confused, to feel it. He couldn’t find anything that seemed amiss — it sat flat and was pulled back into a neat queue. In fact, if anything, it probably looked neater than it usually did since he had actually bothered to brush it out this morning.

“It’s fine—” he started but Yennefer immediately pressed a finger to his lips, shushing him.

“You are no longer in the  _ woods _ , Geralt,” she said firmly, “you don’t  _ have _ to look like a wild animal.”

Geralt scowled. “I do not—”

“Please, I think there’s sticks in there. Sit.”

Geralt did so, but seriously considered being done with the whole thing and going back to bed. Yennefer wouldn’t be able to move him if he didn’t want to be moved — well, not without magic, and once that was added into the equation then everything got messy. Better not tempt it. Perhaps it would be better to just scale out the window while Yennefer’s back was to him; he could saddle Roach and head off again before the night had fully settled. He had spent too much time in town already and he could feel it wearing on him as it always did after too long in one place, even if that place was Yennefer’s. This ridiculous masque was just the final piece of sand rubbing against his raw patience for humanity.

“There it is,” said Yennefer, after some rattling among her various elixirs and perfumes and cosmetics, all of which combined to create an almost choking picture of scents behind Geralt’s back. “Now, hold still.”

“Yen, what—?”

But then the leather band was being pulled from his hair and a wide brush, one that Geralt knew was inlaid with mother of pearl, was being pulled through his hair.

“I already brushed it.”

“Don’t whine. What you did was flatten it to an inch of its life. You have lovely hair, Geralt, don’t torture it.”

Geralt huffed at that, not at all sure whether or not it was meant as a barb, but the brush strokes were hypnotic and in any case it was better than pretending to tolerate some duchesse or whoever else would be at this affair of Yen’s.

“You have hair that’s actually long enough to do something with,” said Yennefer, as her fingers gently pulled the hair back from his temples. “And a colour that is striking enough to warrant attention. Let’s give the people something worth looking at.”

If she expected people to admire a witcher’s hair, she was bound to be disappointed. Even witchers couldn’t be bothered to mind their own hair, humans certainly wanted nothing to do with it. But Geralt found he didn’t particularly mind his hair at that moment, not while Yennefer’s fingers were in it. He was aware he was no longer sitting stiff and irritable on the settee but was instead leaning back against its arm, against Yennefer who was kneeling on the settee behind him.

“Geralt?” she said, as her fingers did some complicated twining behind him.

“Mm?” he said.

“Nothing. Sit up a bit, you’ve made me make a botch of this, I’ll have to start over.”

Geralt complied, and Yennefer pulled out everything she had succeeded in doing so far. “Better to start over than build on poor foundations,” she said simply. And start over she did, taking up her brush again, and once again pulling it through his hair with a satisfying rasp. “To fix the part,” she had said, though Geralt wasn’t really paying attention at that point. It did seem to him however that Yennefer messed up rather more often than he would normally expect from her, frequently weaving his hair together only to undo it all and start over all again. Geralt wasn’t complaining. He simply sat there, with his eyes half lidded, pupils narrowed to enjoy the soft darkness of the room as the sun sank beyond the city skyline and the candles glowed low in the stands.

In the end, they never did go to that masque and instead wound up in Yennefer’s bed, with her fingers knotted in the hair she had finally finished pulling into a complicated set of weaves and braids.

By the time morning came around, those braids were in a truly shameful state and Geralt didn’t even remotely care about the wasted time spent on them. In fact, he would mind at all another attempt, though he kept that thought to himself.

He left town a few days later, his hair back in its leather band.




“Stop that.” Geralt grabbed the hand touching the back of his head by the wrist, needing to exert no pressure to keep it still.

“Mm?” said Borch Three Jackdaws, the offender. “You aren’t ticklish, surely, are you, Geralt?”

Geralt titled his head back against the edge of the tub to better see the knight, eyes narrowed. He had noticed when Jackdaws had disentangled himself from Téa, standing up from the tub, but Geralt had expected him to go use the chamberpot, or call for more food, not to amble behind Geralt and start playing with his hair.

“Maybe I just don’t like having a stranger at my back,” said Geralt.

Three Jackdaws gave a polite hum, as though he were considering this. “You do not seem to mind me other places, my friend,” he said jovially. “Some, I would say, far more delicate than your back. Though I imagine a witcher has little to fear.”

“Fear and caution are— are separate beasts,” Geralt attempted to say, though his thoughts — and mouth — were being distracted by Véa. 

“Perhaps, but brothers nonetheless.” A hand stroked through his hair, only across the surface, barely touching, and yet somehow all the more intimate. Geralt felt a shudder shake up his spine, as his entire focus was drawn to the man behind him, despite the women before him. “Though I am wondering what it is you fear, Geralt of Rivia. Certainly not three naked humans.”

“Can we not talk about this?” Geralt grit out. “There must be better things for us to be doing.”

Jackdaws laughed. “Yes, perhaps.”

For the moment, at least, Jackdaws seemed to abandon his post at Geralt’s back, coming to lounge by the side of the tub, though he didn’t get back in immediately, instead drinking from one of the pitcher of beer that still remained, and letting Téa steal his attention. She at least sounded like she was appreciating it.

Geralt attempted to distract himself from the pins and needles that were still prickling at the back of his neck by focusing on Véa, who seemed more amused by his fumbling than offended, laughing against him. It seemed rather unfair to Geralt to fault him for feeling rather off kilter — he had been travelling alone for several months at that point, and all of a sudden he was surrounded by considerably more people than he was used to.

In a very different sort of scenario than he was used to.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he had been in a bathing tub this big outside of a quick dip in a pond, never mind among three other wet bodies.

They continued to drink through the beer, the Zerrikanians cheerfully keeping pace with Geralt and Jackdaws, despite having eaten much less earlier that evening. Positions changed, Geralt didn’t and at some point Geralt had lazily held his hand beneath the water and held a brief  _ igni  _ sign until the water was hot enough to redden their skin again.

At some point Véa and Téa ended up at one side of the tub, their legs intertwined while they kissed at each other and sang what Geralt could only assume was some sort of Zerrikanian drinking song — the dirty type, if their frequently giggling was anything to go by. Perhaps he should ask them about it, keep it in mind until he met up with Dandelion again. He revelled in bawdy tavern songs.

He had also wound up with Jackdaws more or less on top of him, which Geralt did not particularly mind. Though not as heavily muscled as the two warriors he travelled with, Jackdaws was a very solid person, not someone Geralt needed to be overly cautious of or delicate with which was gratifying, especially after drinking as much as he had.

Though at the moment Jackdaws was staring at him with that considering, amused little expression he had also worn during the dinner, particularly when Geralt had discussed dragons with him. Like he was trying to solve a puzzle of some sort. That Geralt could do without.

“Borch, if you can think so loudly, you have not been drinking your share of the beer,” Geralt remarked, though that was patently untrue.

“I was wondering,” Jackdaws said instead, as bold and fearless as he ever was, “if you would indulge me touching your hair when I’m not at your back.”

Geralt met Jackdaws’ polite, mild expression and scowled. Or attempted it. He didn’t have a particularly strong grip on his emotions or expressions at the moment. The problem had never been having someone at his back, but rather touching his hair, and he had the paranoid suspicion that Jackdaws was fully aware of that. 

Or maybe it was just because Jackdaws projected the strange feeling that he knew someone Geralt didn’t.

Though Jackdaws shifting in Geralt’s lap and Geralt found himself once again distracted from that train of thought.

“I enjoy indulging my company,” he said, “ensuring they’re in good health. And, Geralt, as admirable as a warrior you may be, you strike me as someone who is not particularly good at asking for what you want or need.”

“Want and need are not the same thing,” said Geralt, trying to keep his thoughts on track while Jackdaws hands were on him.

Jackdaws grinned toothily. “True. Want is  _ much _ more fun.”

Geralt didn’t stop him when he reached out to pet Geralt’s white hair (“Not such a horrible mutation, surely,” he said, as if admiring the monstrous colour), nor when he pulled his long hair over each shoulder, to better reach it. Geralt was not feeling particularly inclined to deny Jackdaws anything, not when it took so much energy to refuse something so simple. So pleasant.

Geralt woke the next morning, much later than he normally slept in while on the Path, feeling deeply well rested, made all the more languid by a satisfying ache in his muscles. It was mildly disorienting to find himself on a bed that he didn’t recognize, piled amid three other people, though their scents were familiar enough after a long evening that it wasn’t particularly shocking, even if Geralt found he couldn’t much remember getting from the tub (now sitting cold in the middle of the room) to the bed.

The twin braids that hung over his shoulders like pigtails were slightly more baffling, though Geralt found himself smothering a smile as he lay back down. He lay back down — there was no point being up before his travelling companions, and he could always remove them when he was ready to get dressed for the road.

5.

Geralt was sitting up in his bed, listening carefully.

He was tired. It had been a hard, long ride up to Kaer Morhen — it had, after all, been his first time navigating the demanding path with a child. And while Ciri was a determined sprig of a girl, while she had been riding horseback since she was out of toddling, while she practically vibrated with her eagerness to see Geralt’s home, the fabled keep of the witchers, she had never undertaken a journey like this. And Geralt had never supported someone dependent on him while taking such a journey. When the keep had come into sight it had been a relief, even more so when he caught sight of Eskel’s scarred face once again. It felt, for the first time in a long time, like he could relax.

And yet he still wasn’t sleeping because he was listening to the timid footsteps out in the dark corridor.

Ciri was pacing. The keep was quiet, or as quiet as it ever got with the way the wind howled through the shattered walls and nocturnal creatures of the valley went about their business. It was quiet enough though for his sharp hearing to wake him from semi-unconsciousness when Ciri’s bedroom door scraped open, and for him to hear the long, hesitant moment before her tiny feet stepped out into the hall. He could tell she was barefoot, her skin slapping quietly against the stone floor, and she moved in fits and bursts. She would patter down the hall towards Geralt’s room, then pause, then retreat, then pause, then begin again in the other direction.

Geralt waited to see what she would do. There was no true privacy in a place like Kaer Morhen, among witchers — that was something you learnt young, there was always someone that would see or hear or smell what you were up to — but you learnt the courtesy to ignore others’ actions unless they wanted them known. If Ciri chose to return to her room, Geralt wouldn’t mention it.

Finally, with a burst like she was trying to move before her convictions ran out, Ciri raced down the hall and, softly, Geralt’s door was pushed open.

“Geralt?” she whispered.

She couldn’t see him sitting up, Geralt realized; it was too dark. She wasn’t even sure he was here, she was just hoping he had come to bed and hadn’t stayed down with the others, to continue passing around stories and white gull.

Before her courage ran out, Geralt shifted, ensuring he made plenty of noise for her to hear, and shot a burst of  _ igni _ at the candle. His pupils snapped into slits at the burst of light, but Ciri’s shoulders immediately relaxed.

“Are you alright?” he asked gently. “Not feeling sick?” He tried not to think about Ciri’s experience with the gull not much earlier, the terrifying moment all the witchers had watched her fit, unsure of what was happening, of the words she was speaking. She seemed to have no memory of it and no lingering effects though, so Geralt put it from his mind hoping it was nothing but a bad reaction of a human tasting witcher liquor. Besides which, she had seemed fine enough on the ride up, he had felt no fever heat when she had been leaning against him on Roach, and besides for the gull incident had been alert and hungry during dinner. But still. She was a child. A human.

Ciri hesitated. And then shook her head.  _ Not sick then _ . But her gaze stayed down at her feet.

Geralt realized he had no idea what to do with this small, scared looking child. She had survived Brokilon, dryads, bandits, the massacre of Cintra, and all the terrors of the path up to Kaer Morhen, and had done so with resilience that would put a grown man to shame. Yet here she was, shivering in a baggy nightshirt that Vesemir had rooted out of the old trainees’ stores. What could be done to comfort this strange girl-creature? Geralt didn’t know, couldn’t know.

Except… here, in Kaer Morhen, the only home he remembered, vague thoughts bumped through his head. A half formed idea.

“Ciri,” he said, “come here.”

She hesitated, but did. And once she was past the threshold, she practically leapt into the bed, as if she feared something lurked beneath to grab at her ankles. Geralt immediately had an armful of shuddering child.

“Sit here a moment,” he told her, and then stood up to retrieve his bag from the corner in which he had dumped it. He found what he was looking for near the bottom. Returning to the bed, he sat cross-legged against the wall. “Come sit in front of me.”

Once Ciri had done so, he took her ashy blonde hair in his hand, and began to carefully pick through the knots with a comb. Ciri sat still, hugging her knees to her chest, while Geralt worked.

“Tomorrow I’ll take you to the bathing chambers,” Geralt said, voice staying as soft as the flickering candle light that lit the room in pale oranges and yellows. “It will be a relief to wash the road off. But this will get some of the dust and knots out until then.” Geralt paused to tease a leaf out, and reached around to drop it in Ciri’s hands. “You’re sure you didn’t turn into a dryad and forget to tell me?”

That managed to make Ciri smile — or at least give a soft huff of laughter, since Geralt couldn’t actually see her face from where he sat.

“I’ll braid your hair,” he said. “It will be more comfortable to sleep on.”

“You can braid?” Ciri asked. She was sounding a little less small. “Do they teach that to all witchers?”

He poked her side, making her squawk, or possibly laugh. “You’re not allowed to take the Trials until you can manage a decent braid.”

“You’re lying!”

“Never.”

“I’ll ask the others!”

“Go ahead. Ask Eskel, he’ll tell you the same. He excelled at weaving in flowers. His were by far and away the most intricate and delicate, he was an inspiration to us all.”

“What if I ask someone other than Eskel?”

“Coen is from the Griffin School, they’re all savages over there, so what does he know. And Lambert lives to spite me, he would deny the Braiding Trial for sure.”

“Or they won’t lie for you like Eskel will,” Ciri said wryly. “Eskel was the one with…” She hesitated, then made a slashing gesturing at the side of her face.

Geralt smirked. “Perhaps. And yes, that’s him. You’ll like him, he’s nicer than a witcher has any right to be. Lambert makes up for it though.”

The worst of the tangles were now out of her hair, and Geralt was faced by the rather daunting task of actually braiding. He knew the premise, he had woven his own rope before, but in truth he had never attempted to braid his own hair. He simply tied it back with a hairband or into a queue. His only experience with braids was when others had done them for him. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult though, he mused, setting to work.

“You  _ are _ a liar,” Ciri said after a while, reaching back to feel the half-done results of Geralt’s efforts. “This is  _ horrible _ .”

Geralt considered his handiwork, and the loose strands the frizzed around the girl’s head. The premise was simple enough, true, but it turned out keeping all those bits of hair where they belonged was considerably harder and Geralt’s fingers felt clumsy.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Geralt said sagely.

“Even I can braid better than you,” she declared.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! Here, I’ll show you. Come. Come here, move.” She tugged on Geralt’s arm, and finally he relented and let her maneuver him onto the floor so that she could sit on the bed and reach his hair. “Comb,” she demanded imperiously, and Geralt passed her his broken-toothed travelling comb. 

It was no gentle experience, to have Ciri tugging at the knots in his hair, but she had probably never been raised to comb another’s hair and now her focus was fully on her end goal. And yet Geralt found himself closing his eyes and enjoying the fact that Ciri was once again loud and glowing and vibrant, no longer the scared little creature lurking in Kaer Morhen’s corridor. She was much better at the act of braiding though, then she was at the preparation. Her fingers were small and nimble and sure of the motions as she gathered his milk-white hair and divided it. And then it was just a matter of over and under and soft tugs. 

Such a silly task, Geralt mused. It was so much work for such a silly ornament. He couldn’t imagine himself ever taking the time to do it for himself, and was constantly bemused when others seemed inclined to take the time on him.

“There!” she said finally.

Geralt felt it, and indeed, it was tight and neat, not a hair out of place, though from the way it sat Geralt was sure it would not be comfortable at all to sleep on.

“Alright, you win,” he said.

“That means I get to be a witcher, right?” she said, making Geralt laugh.

“Be careful how keen you are, or Vesemir will have you on the Killer before you’ve even been here two days. Though, speaking of Vesemir, he will expect to see us for breakfast — you’d best go to bed.”

And suddenly the warm, teasing Ciri was gone. Her breath caught and her muscles froze.

Geralt turned. “Ciri?”

She bit her lip. Her fingers lingered on his hair, playing with the tip of the braid, fidgeting, anxious, unsure.

“Speak, Ciri.”

“Can I stay here?” she said finally. “It’s… it’s dark.”

The way she had hesitated entering the keep, had flinched at the sight of Eskel’s scarred face, how her heart had pounded when he had left her to stable Roach. Of course, this was his home but like any witcher the keep had a fearsome face, wounded and broken and inhospitable. It wasn’t Cintra castle, built on the elegant bones of an elven palace; it wasn’t Ciri’s home, not yet at least. It would be, Geralt swore. He would ensure she felt at home here, that she felt as safe as he did.

“Yes,” he said. “Only for tonight, though, as a thank you for the braid.”

She nodded, and crawled into the bed next him when he held up the covers, and tucked herself against him when he snuffed the candle. Geralt curled towards her, protective, as he had when they were on the road. The braid dug into the back of his skull, but he didn’t even consider removing it as he felt Ciri’s hands curl against his nightshirt, her breathing gradually evening out until it barely shifted the messy braid that hung down her own back.

Braiding, a silly, frivolous gesture, but here in the dark Geralt couldn’t help but feel that, like the ropes they resembled, both helped anchor them to something large and nebulous, that Geralt had no interest in trying to name.

+1.

“My dear witcher, what are you doing?”

Geralt froze. He hadn’t even noticed Dandelion coming up. And given that Dandelion had a way of announcing himself long before he was seen — with his perfumes and noises and the rhythm of his steps (not graceful, per se, but there was a definite rhythm to them, something Geralt could easily pick out from a crowd) — it said something about his senses at the moment.

Mostly, it said they were fried, which was an accurate assessment.

“Keep it down,” Geralt said, voice so low it was more of a growl. He kept his back turned to the bard, mentally trying to compel him to turn around and go back down to the tavern proper. Perhaps it would be worth attempting an  _ axii  _ sign.

Ugh, no, the thought of attempting more magic right now was untenable. The normal world rubbed too coarse and harsh against his skin right now, magic could very well be the thing that sent him over the edge.

“Elixirs still has you rattled, hm?” said Dandelion, closing the door behind him, muffling somewhat the noises beyond — which was a blessing, as it jabbed at Geralt’s ears like a fire poker — but with himself on the wrong side of it.

Geralt just gave an annoyed hum in response. Clearly they were still troubling him.

He had taken too many, he could own up to that. The hunt had been hard, elusive. He had believed he was hunting a frustratingly particular nightwraith; nothing they had done had compelled it to come out, so Geralt had waited until the new moon, and filled himself with potions that would help him track it down. De Vries Extract to sharpen his sight enough to see on a moonless night, to sharpen his sense of smell to root out the wraith’s resting spot like a bloodhound, to sharpen his hearing and reflexes,a wraith oil for his sword. Of course, it hadn’t turned out to be a wraith at all, that was for sure when a wall of very solid muscle and claws was bearing down on him and Dandelion, and Geralt was left to curse the villager’s ignorance and his own lazy assumptions. Lazy assumptions that almost got them killed. Almost got Dandelion killed, when the creature had flung itself, snarling, at the easiest looking target, who had thought he would be plenty safe in the  _ yrden _ Geralt had placed on the ground. Geralt had knocked back a Thunderbolt potion without thinking as he flung himself bodily onto the beast to drag it off Dandelion. The whole fight was a mess; Vesemir would have never forgiven him if he had seen it. Then Geralt was taking Swallow and Kiss, to keep from bleeding out miserably in a field as the sun began to rise over his kill and stab into his blown out irises. Even as he’d knocked back the Kiss, to get his blood to coagulate, he knew it was a mistake, could feal the toxicity wearing him down from the inside, but it was either bear that or leave Dandelion a corpse to drag back to town.

Now he was in his and Dandelion’s shared room at the tavern, drapes firmly shut, as he shuddered his way through the overdose. The useful effects had long since passed, but his senses were still a jangly wreck, so he was left to find ways to distract himself, something simple and soothing.

Which was why Dandelion had walked in on him attempting to braid his hair of all things.

It had seemed like a logical choice at the time.

Dandelion, either unaware or indifferent to Geralt’s embarrassment, trotted around to sit on the bed, facing Geralt where he was hunched in the chair.

“That’s atrocious,” he said cheerfully. “Does Yennefer know you commit these sorts of crimes to your hair?”

“Piss off, Dandelion,” said Geralt. He was tired, and he knew the hair he had pulled over his shoulder was more knot than anything else. Yet Dandelion’s even, familiar voice was something to focus on, to drown out the million other sounds of a tavern (clattering in the kitchen, rats in the walls, insects in the bed, people down below, more walking, riding, shouting from the street beyond the walls, and to say nothing of the sparrows in the rafters or the mice in the thatch or—)

Dandelion’s hand covered Geralt’s own, and everything narrowed into that single spot of warmth.

“Is it that bad still?” he asked, not unkindly, brushing his fingers against Geralt’s eyelids. Geralt only realized then that he hadn’t opened them once since Dandelion had come in — every other sense painted an oversaturated picture, he didn’t need his eyes to perfectly see Dandelion. In any case, he knew him better than anyone. When Geralt didn’t answer, Dandelion pushed his hands away, “Here, let me fix your hair.”

“Don’t,” Geralt growled.

It must have come out forcefully enough — that, or his skin was still a nightmarish, fiendishly-veined pallor — that Dandelion moved back. His bubble of warmth faded back. The rest of the tavern pushed back in.

“As you like,” said Dandelion. “Shall I return downstairs?”

Geralt clenched his fists but said nothing.

With no response, Dandelion sighed and stood to do so, realizing he was helpless in a situation like this.

Why braid at all, Geralt’s mind whirred. It was a silly, pointless thing. Not even something he was good at. Far from it. Yet he had still found himself, head so sore he couldn’t see straight, pulling his hair in and out of strands, trying, failing, and trying again, lost in the repetition, in the strange comfort.

It was a pointless chore. And yet a gentle one, a loving one. Someone taking the time to offer comfort.

“Wait,” said Geralt tightly, before Dandelion could get to the door.

Dandelion halted. Geralt sighed internally.

“Yes,” he said, “if you would, please, I… Would you braid my hair for me, Dandelion?”

He could practically hear the way the bard perked up — indeed, he could hear the spring in his steps as he bounded back over to Geralt.

“Let me show you how an expert handles hair,” he said, voice still soft, as were his fingers when he pulled Geralt’s hair back over his shoulder and flattened it against his back. “You’re lucky to have so much of it, I haven’t the patience to grow mine so long. Someday you will have to let me heat irons and put some curl in it.”

Geralt hummed noncommittally. There were limits.

“Have you ever had a Redanian braid? They’re ridiculously excessive, even by my standards. You’ll loathe it, and it takes a devilishly long time.”

Geralt hummed again, hearing beneath Dandelion’s words what the bard was carefully not saying: that he wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. That he was prepared to simply exist in this quiet room and play with Geralt’s hair. It was such a silly indulgence, yet as soon as Dandelion plucked Geralt’s comb from the bed (tutting at the state of it) Geralt was practically melting back against the bard.

It was all an inconvenience, completely unnecessary, and yet it was rather shocking how far a little comfort could go.

**Author's Note:**

> The headcanon that Vesemir giving all baby witchers bad haircuts is inspired by this tumblr post because it's adorable and I love it: https://creepyscritches.tumblr.com/post/181701497042/scoot-dropping-hot-takes-tonight-in-the-dms
> 
> also apologies for anything that seems out of character or non-canonical. I'm a) still working through the books, and b) play calvinball when it comes to what bits of canon I keep and which I slamdunk in the trashcan. hopefully it provided a bit of a fun distraction in these weird times of ours


End file.
